Coming Home: A Story of Undying Hope

by Karen Kingsbury

  She would fight for them until her final breath.

  Sixteen

  JOHN HADN’T SLEPT MORE THAN A COUPLE HOURS IN A CHAIR IN Erin’s room since they arrived at St. Anne’s two days ago. Elaine had been by that afternoon, and she’d brought him fresh blueberries and a bag of almonds. Food he couldn’t always find in the hospital cafeteria.

  By now the rest of the world knew about the accident. The news had been reported on the front page of yesterday’s Bloomington Herald Times, and since the family had clearly been notified of the tragedy, the names of Erin and Sam and the girls were all written into the story. All of the city and state, all of the nation for that matter, had been given at least a small version of the tragedy. It was that terrible.

  John was alone in the waiting room at this hour, sometime after seven o’clock. The others had gone back to Ashley’s house where Reagan and Katy had made chili and homemade corn bread. All of them agreed it wasn’t healthy to stay at the hospital this long without a break. John just couldn’t convince himself to leave. Not while his daughter was still fighting for her life.

  The nurses needed to work on her, change tubing and tend to her various medications and IV fluids. John used the occasion to come to the waiting room, the place that was beginning to feel like some strange kind of new home. He walked to the window and stared out at the lights of St. Anne’s north wing. He knew the hospital well enough to know what he was looking at.

  It was the labor and delivery ward. The place where all of his grandchildren except for Erin’s girls and Tommy had been born. A place where even this moment life was being celebrated. He stared at the bright windows and dark brick walls and it helped, just a little. Knowing that amidst the death and dying, life still reigned nearby. He leaned against the window frame and let his thoughts go where he least wanted them to, the place he’d been fighting not to fall into.

  The place of doubt.

  Fragments of truth were in him and around him, no question. There was the Bible Promise app on his phone and a list on his phone’s notepad of memorized Scriptures. He and Elaine had read sections in Ephesians and Revelation and 2 Corinthians as a way of surviving the minute-by-minute pain. The excruciating pain. But through it all he hadn’t found a way to kill the doubt.

  It came in the form of subtle questions. Why his family? When they had only ever loved the Lord and served Him, and when the girls had all their lives ahead, why Erin and Sam? And why would God need to take them home to heaven so soon, and how were the rest of them ever supposed to feel normal again? God could’ve stopped the whole thing from happening. He could’ve prevented the accident.

  John felt his body tremble, the aftereffects of adrenaline and heartache that hadn’t left his system since he heard the first terrible news. He left the window and spotted yesterday’s newspaper on a waiting room end table. Having it there was like having someone standing in the room shouting the truth at him. The accident had happened. He wasn’t having a nightmare or suffering from some delusion. Erin and Sam and the girls had been rear-ended by an eighteen-wheeler on Highway 37.

  He picked up the paper, rolled it so the story was on the inside, and dropped it into the nearest trash can. The details were vivid, the way they would remain as long as John’s heart beat. He leaned against the nearest wall and stared at nothing. The man who hit them had been a fifty-three-year-old truck driver named Marty Cohen. A professional trucker with decades of experience and a clean record. The guy must’ve had his seat belt off, because he was ejected from his truck on impact. Dead at the scene.

  Police were doing what they could to investigate the accident, but in the end witnesses provided everything they needed to know. The guy had fallen asleep. Several motorists were quoted in the article saying the guy had his eyes closed right up until he plowed into the van. Too many hours on the road, too many demands on his work load. He had a truck full of potatoes that needed to reach Indianapolis that day. That’s what the newspaper said.

  A truck full of potatoes.

  As if having potatoes by that night would’ve been worth the lives of his precious Erin and her family. John breathed deep, and tried with everything in him to release the doubts. He wasn’t a doubting man, not ever. Not when Elizabeth got cancer, and not when she died of it after Ashley’s wedding. He thought back further and found no time like this where doubts seemed rooted in his soul. He had doubted the miracle they needed for Hayley after her drowning accident, but he had never doubted God Himself. Not when Ashley got pregnant in Paris, and not when Luke left the family during his college years.

  Not 9 – 11 and not Landon’s lung disease.

  Nothing had shaken him like this.

  The church knew by now, along with the rest of the town, and Mark Atteberry’s wife had organized a prayer chain and meals for everyone staying at Ashley’s house. The first meals had begun arriving that morning. Pastor Mark asked the congregation to respect the Baxter family’s privacy by staying away from the hospital, but many of them had sent cards and flowers to the house. The show of kindness and the promise of prayer comforted all of them.

  He checked his watch. The nursing staff should be finished working with Erin now. He wouldn’t know until she woke up whether she could hear him during this part of her recovery or not, whether she knew he was in the room. But he had to be there. In case his presence encouraged her or calmed her or helped her to heal.

  In case she didn’t …

  The thought swung dangerously from the rafters of his mind like a dagger capable of dealing a fatal blow. He couldn’t finish it, couldn’t acknowledge it. Let it hang there, he told himself. Never mind the truth it held. John had to be with Erin because a daughter in trouble needed her daddy.

  And there was no question Erin was in trouble. It was enough to acknowledge that much without having to finish the terrifying thought. Erin was still critical. Sam, too. But like yesterday, Sam was worse again, the infection blazing through his body refusing to retreat to the powerful antibiotics. John had been in to see Chloe and Amy Elizabeth, both of them too sedated to show any signs of life. And he’d spent time with Sam, of course.

  But mainly he wanted to be with Erin.

  He started toward the waiting room door, but as he did his young friend Chris Hazel entered the room. At the sight of John, Hazel stopped short and his face fell. John felt his heart skip a beat, and then another. Not again … another of them. He leaned back against the wall, not sure he could stand up through whatever news the doctor was bringing.

  “You’re alone?” Chris came toward him.

  “The others are having dinner. They’ll be back in an hour.” John looked around for the nearest seat. Already he could feel the blood leaving his face. Not another one, please, God …

  “Let’s sit down.” Chris motioned toward the nearest set of chairs, and they both took seats, adjusting themselves so they were facing each other. “The news isn’t good.”

  “Never.” John clenched his jaw, hating the cynicism creeping into his tone. “I’m sorry. I just … I don’t understand this.”

  Chris sat close enough that he reached out and put his hand on John’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine this.”

  John couldn’t imagine it, either. Not a week ago and not in this moment. He waited, wishing he could stop time and protect himself from what was coming. His silence lasted seconds, but it felt like a week. When he couldn’t stand it another moment he hung his head. As he looked up, he could feel tears gathering once more. “Tell me. Please, Chris.”

  “We’ve lost Chloe and Sam. Their brain activity stopped within a minute of each other.” Chris looked pale, his eyes searching John’s as if waiting for some terrible reaction, a reaction like the one John had suffered when he first heard about the accident.

  But this time the news came on stocking feet, creeping softly into his heart and not quite hitting the nerves of reality. Instead the doctor’s words seemed more factual, like a detail John would have to work throug
h later. Even in the middle of sorting through his strange feelings, John knew what was happening. The shock was too great, too much for him to bear. His brain knew this, and so it had created a barrier between reality and the place John had slipped into.

  He felt himself nod, but otherwise he seemed to be in some strange dream. Chris Hazel was saying something about organs again, but John couldn’t make out all the words. As if someone else was controlling his body, he heard himself say, “Yes … please use whatever organs you can.” Chris slid a clipboard to him and John felt his hand signing at the bottom.

  But through it all he was no longer sure if he was even awake.

  “Would you like to see them? Chloe and Sam?” Chris exhaled hard, and the sound seemed to gather up from his shoes. “Also, I can call the rest of the family, if you want. I have Ashley and Landon’s numbers.”

  His questions floated in the space between them and took a few seconds to come together. John felt a heaviness come over him. The heaviness of a broken heart. Suddenly he understood. Chloe and Sam were dead, and his doctor friend was giving him the chance to see them one last time, whether the man should call the others. John looked into his friend’s eyes and nodded. That was all he could bring himself to do.

  “Okay, then.” Chris stood slowly. “Come on back when you’re ready, John. I’ll take you to them. And I’ll call Landon.”

  That worked. John couldn’t imagine calling them and telling them about this latest blow. He watched his friend leave and then he dug his elbows into his knees. For a long time he leaned over his legs and let his head rest in his hand. Chloe and Sam. His precious Erin had just lost her last remaining teenage daughter and her husband. When she woke up — if she woke up — she would only have Amy Elizabeth.

  The whole last few days seemed so awful they almost had to be a nightmare. But then, that was the shock again, doing its job, trying to protect him. I want to ask You why, Lord … why You would allow this. He waited for an answer, waited with only the beat of his heart as any sort of response. Doubt and anger tap-danced in his mind, rousing him to face the reality surrounding him. You could’ve woken up that truck driver. You could’ve stopped this. He exhaled, trying to rid his body of the strange and unusual feeling consuming him. He never doubted God. Never.

  Help me, Father … I’m sorry. I just don’t understand. Please … give me strength to take the next step.

  Seconds passed and then gradually, like air filling a balloon, he felt the Lord breathe life into him, felt himself possess the strength to stand and do the one thing he absolutely had to do next.

  Go see Chloe and Sam.

  WITH EVERY BREATH, JOHN WISHED HE would wake up. That none of the things happening around him were really happening. But he was wide awake and they were playing out as surely as the clock ticking on the wall. Dr. Hazel had assured him the others were on their way back down. Many of them, anyway.

  And he had other news, too. Erin didn’t look well. Her vital signs were weakening, and her fever was up. Infection was a strong possibility, her body too badly damaged to fight the ravaging destruction throughout it. “I want you to be ready, John. That’s all.”

  Be ready? How in the world could anyone be ready for forty-eight hours like they’d all just gone through? Either way, he nodded. Took the news like another sucker punch to the gut in a fight he had lost in a knockout three rounds ago. He went to Sam’s room first, to the right side of his bed where there were fewer machines. On the other side his heart was still beating. Same as they’d done with Clarissa. His organs needed to be protected if they’d be worth passing on to someone else.

  He stared at his son-in-law, and a collage of memories flashed in his mind. Sam Hogan coming to him when Erin was just out of college. I’d like to marry your daughter, sir. I promise to take care of her as long as I live. And then they were sitting around the Baxter family dining room table — back when the house still belonged to John and Elizabeth — and they were back from their honeymoon to Lake Michigan and ready to open wedding presents and Sam was smiling and saying, Everything feels so new and shiny, just like our lives together. And they were coming to him and Elizabeth — Sam and Erin, both — and they were asking for advice, how marriage could withstand infertility. And Sam’s voice rang through the memory. I love Erin with or without children, but the pressure is killing us. With that the flashback changed and Sam and Erin were walking up to him with not one but four adopted daughters. And Sam was beaming and saying, If I live to be a hundred years old, I’ll never understand why God chose to bless us so completely.

  Ambitious, determined, loyal Sam Hogan.

  John put his hand on Sam’s head and felt him, the reality of him. Lord, now the girls have their daddy again. Let them be together in heaven. Let Elizabeth be with them so that all my loved ones on that side are together with You. Please …

  It was a picture he hadn’t allowed in his mind until only just now. Somehow the horror of the last few days had been so firmly entrenched in the here and now, he had forgotten about the there and then. The fact that as Erin’s family—one at a time — left this world, they were instantly in the other.

  A different sort of emotion filled his heart and soul and created tears where before the anger and doubt were consuming him. The feeling was peace. Because if Sam was in heaven with Chloe and Clarissa and Heidi Jo, and if the four of them were there with Elizabeth and little Sarah and if they were keeping company with their Savior, then how could he be angry?

  He stepped back and the last memory, the one that would stay with him long after this painful day was over, was the image of Sam standing at the front of Clear Creek Church promising to love Erin as long as he lived.

  “Well done, Sam, my son. Well done.” A sad smile lifted John’s lips as he saw his son-in-law the way he had looked that day. “You did what you promised.”

  With that he left the room and went next door to the bed where Chloe lay. This was harder, but still John forced himself to hold on to the truth. She wasn’t here, wasn’t in a bed attached to tubes and machines, her brain destroyed. She was alive and vibrant, running with two of her sisters and getting to know Elizabeth like never before. She was with her daddy. John walked to her bedside and put his hand on her shoulder. “Chloe … I loved you so much.” He whispered the words. They were for him, not for her, but he had to say them. “I hate that I didn’t get to tell you good-bye, sweetheart.”

  She still felt warm and alive, the work of the machine keeping her heart going. He withdrew his hand and studied her, the beautiful child who had been old enough to know the horrors of her previous life with her birth mother, Candy Burns. Poor Chloe had seen drug deals go down and she’d witnessed her mother get beaten time and again. As she got older the beatings became hers and Clarissa’s, devastating conditions that continued until finally the state intervened.

  Yet through it all she never seemed anything other than a happy, well-adjusted teenager. Quieter than Clarissa, but marked by an occasional sense of spunk and humor that John imagined would’ve become defining characteristics as she grew older. But they would never know now. He tried to think of a memory of Chloe he could take with him, one that stood apart from the others and instantly one surfaced.

  Last Fourth of July, weeks before Sam got word about the job opening in Austin, the whole group was gathered at Lake Monroe for their annual picnic and fishing derby. John had finished with more fish than usual, even though his team didn’t win. Everyone dispersed from the lakeside and headed back to the picnic tables, back to apply mosquito spray and slip into sweatshirts and position their chairs so they could see the fireworks over the lake. In that moment of transition, Chloe had walked up to him.

  “Papa, can you come here? I wanna show you something.” She was tanned from a day on the beach, and her blue eyes sparkled in the reflection of the setting sun. She held out her hand and bounced a little. “Please? It’s the coolest thing.”

  John went to her and she held on to his arm as th
ey walked. “I think it’s a bald eagle! It’s the prettiest bird I’ve ever seen. And it has this huge nest.” It was more talking than Chloe usually did in an entire afternoon — at least from John’s experience. But that moment she was as chatty as her older sister. Together they walked along the shore fifty yards or so until they reached a point where they could see a nest in a distant tree. “There it is!” Her voice filled with excitement. “What do you think? Is it a bald eagle?”

  John shielded his eyes and stared at the tree. As he did, as they both watched, a huge bird suddenly flew from the nest and took flight. “Well, look at that.” John had laughed, surprised. “You’re right, Chloe girl. It is a bald eagle.”

  “I knew it.” She stood beside him, the two of them watching as the eagle effortlessly gained height and circled slowly over the water. “It’s the most beautiful thing ever.” Chloe turned and hugged him around his waist. Then she looked right at him. “You’re the best grandpa in the world.” She grinned. “I thought you should know.”

  With that she ran off to join up with her sisters. And John was left standing there knowing one thing with all his heart. He would never forget that moment, or the shared glimpse of a bald eagle he’d experienced with Erin’s second-oldest daughter. Her sweet expression, her kind eyes, the way she told him he was the best grandpa. All of it combined to form a single image of the girl. The one he would take with him when he left her bedside.

  And every day after that.

  He turned away, grateful for the gift of remembering, and he left the room to find Erin. When the others arrived, that’s where he wanted to be. Erin needed him the most, because she was still living. Which was why he had no time to waste, no moments to spend in the waiting room grieving the loss of Chloe and Sam.